Repository of adventures.

Month: November 2012

Six years ago I began WindyHarbor.com as an homage to my screenplay series and to continue my self-reflexive internet writing endeavors. While I’ve rarely been able to afford the time to post here the past few years, I’d like to begin focusing more on my writing with what is left of 2012; a year that has been immeasurably good to me.

It goes without saying that the birth of your first child (and any child for that matter) changes your life in wonderful, inexplicable ways. Harper has been the piece I was missing all this time. She is a constant source of inspiration and a token of wonder. The birth of my daughter has completely changed my way of seeing things and she takes precedence over everything in my life. It is my hope that I can turn her immense impact and focus it into an unparalleled creative streak. We’re not talking oil on canvas. More like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2 miles of fabric, and a few squares miles of rural landscape.

Today, November 1 brings NaNoWriMo; the perfect opportunity to dust off a story or two I have buried on my hard drive, put a few ounces of fuel in them, and see where they go. I have the utmost determination to get these stories back on the road, but…

My mind is drawing an absolute blank at this point.

A powerful new drive to write, miles of blank paper, an inspiring 12 pound, blue eyed, chubby cheeked muse, and I honestly can’t figure out where to start. I think I’m suffering from performance anxiety. Hence, this forward.

I blame this hiccup partially on my job, through which I do an ungodly amount of writing. I can throw together a formal ask for sponsorship at the drop of a hat, I can weave magic through a grant application, and even my archaeology reports (far and few as they are at this time) are easy as pie when I compare them to baking a few bits of fiction together. So even with the determination I have firmly grasped in my mind, I have to wonder if I can soldier on when I often spend my days sewing an entirely different sort of banner.

I’m also a bit nervous to see my characters again. It’s been almost three years since I’ve played in a few of my sandboxes and I’m afraid I’m out of touch with the heroes and heroines I’ve created. We’re like friends who went off to college and now three years later we meet for the first time. It’s just awkward.

So for what it’s worth, to my characters, I’m sorry. I never called, I never wrote, and I don’t have a single good excuse. But it shouldn’t matter because we’ve been through it all. We’re cut from the same cloth you and I and whatever is sitting between us it’s nothing we can’t hash out with a few hours in a quiet room. Besides, three years apart, we’re bound to have plenty to catch up on. I’ve got a hundred stories and there are a dozen or so of you; the loner, the stoner, the damsel, the vengeful, the victim, and so on. Surely you’ve got tales from these past few years. Let’s start there. Who is first?

And before I know it, I’m settled. I can see my path, where it starts and where it can lead. The words are flowwing once again.

I can hear it now: my muse is calling. She speaks to me in soft babel and melodic coos. It’s not the next page or the next paragraph. My muse is speaking… and she wants her bottle.